


Breathing with the Universe

by K_Popsicle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Healing, Quite moments, Slice of Life, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25507975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_Popsicle/pseuds/K_Popsicle
Summary: Bucky watches the stars and Shuri visits.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Shuri
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Yellow Team





	Breathing with the Universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GlassesOfJustice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassesOfJustice/gifts).



Bucky stares at the universe painted across the night sky in spots and flecks of long dead light and breathes. The night air is cool after the hot day, the twilight insects have disappeared, and the call of wildlife in the distant trees and fields resonate long and mournful like a chorus of life.

The sound of an engine approaching surprises him, but it’s got that Wakandan near silent hum of technology beyond the rest of the world’s comprehension. In stealth he would be hard pressed to hear it but no-ones trying to sneak up on him here.

“It’s just me,” Shuri calls from across the field a moment later, so Bucky stays where he is watching stars he’s never had the chance to map before. The only times he’s been in the southern hemisphere he’d been on missions. Assets didn’t have the luxury of staring at the sky.

He listens to the crunch of her feet on grass as she approaches, then raises his one hand in greeting.

“What are you doing up there?” Shuri asks, and Bucky shrugs with his hand and drops it back onto the hay bale beside his head. Shuri huffs but climbs up beside him with a big bag in tow.

“What have you got there?”

“A picnic,” Shuri declares as if she has brought a great bounty. She’s never bought food before, but he knows a bribe when he sees one. What he’s been bribed for- he’s not quite sure but she’ll get there in her own time. Waiting, breathing, these are things he can do, controls he has. He breathes again and listens as she crosses her legs and sits next to him. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I bought a picnic, Sargent Barnes?” she faces him, knees close to his chest and there’s no panic-flinch response. Not even one that he pushes down and ignores. It’s been slow, letting people touch him once he knew he could stop them, but he’s building up a tolerance. He even likes them, like a firm grip of someone’s hand, or fingers brushing as they pass him things. He’s becoming more tactile, which he now knows is good.

“Why did you bring a picnic, Princess?” he teases, and she slaps him lightly in the side. He tenses, she doesn’t. He relaxes when doesn’t want to attack her, when he doesn’t want to apologise.

“Because there are political meetings in the palace and my lab has been overrun by busy bodies who touch things they should not touch.” It doesn’t actually answer his question but he understands the need to run away. He’s living as a goat herder in Africa. A picnic seems reasonable.

“Will the food keep?” he meets her eye in the dark and she rolls her eyes and pushes the bag to the edge of the pile of hay bales.

“You and the stars,” she teases, “what can you even see without a good telescope?” but she still stretches out next to him and looks up at the sky.

“So much more than I ever could,” he awes and they fall into silence.

If anyone had asked him he would never have thought he’d make friends in Wakanda. He didn’t think friends were even a thing he was capable anymore. Friends from the past were one thing, but forging new bonds was opening yourself up to emotions, to risk, to hurt. But Shuri lays beside him watching the stars in silence, then because she can’t sit still she starts to point out stars that have slight glimmers to them, that flicker blues or reds and tells him why they do it. She points out planets he knows about and lists ones that they can’t even see because they’re too far away. Then as the night wares on she brings up the picnic and he eats while she tells him about the great constellations of Wakanda and the ancient stories behind them.

When it gets later still he realises she doesn’t want to go back to her palace.

“You can have my bed, I’ll stay out here,” he offers because hay makes a terrible bed and only a cad would make a lady sleep on it if there was a bed nearby.

“Sargent Barnes,” she corrects, “it is a privilege to sleep under the Wakandan sky. Even if there are bugs.”

“Fair enough,” he agrees and in the silence that follows he falls asleep with the world around him, safe, and better than he has been in a long time.


End file.
